Abramson's thread is a good one but the some of the bits that jumped out at me (having yet to read the transcript) were:
Seth Abramson
*@SethAbramson*
49/ Simpson won't reveal any client names, but says that he and Fusion GPS began work on Trump's myriad U.S. and overseas business dealings—which have been an issue many people have wanted and tried to research for decades, not simply in 2015—in "September or October of 2015."
50/ This timeline is key: it means Fusion worked for Republicans for 9 months before the Dems ever got involved, and the initial reason for the course of investigation Fusion embarked upon was a general view Trump could be successful as a politician—so oppo was reasonable.
51/ This completely undercuts the Republican narrative and Trump's—that what started Fusion GPS looking at Trump was a Democratic interest in making Russia a story. No. In 2015—before anyone was talking about Trump-Russia ties—Fusion GPS was asked to look at his business deals.
And
58/ The Republicans take one in the gut: Trump's business partner—Sater—is connected to the same crime family Simpson became an expert on in working for Prevezon's law firm, so even the Trump-sanctions tie in the dossier originated nine months before any Democrats were involved.
As it happens, Felix Sater was, you know, connected to the same Russian crime family that was at issue in the Prevezon case, which is the dominant Russian crime family in Russia and has a robust U.S. presence and is involved in a lot of crime and criminal activity in the United States and for many years was the -- the leader of this family was on the FBI most wanted list and lives
59/ Simpson notes the crime family Sater is connected to is linked to Russian natural-gas pipeline issues—so now the Trump-Russia energy tie was already in play nine months before any Democrats were involved.
You know, Russian organized crime is very different from Italian organized crime. It's much more sort of a hybrid kind of thing where they're involved in politics and banking and there's even a lot of connections between the mafia and the KGB or the FSB and cyber crime, things that the Italians sort of never figured out. Stock fraud in particular was the big thing in the U.S. In any event, all of that entered into my thinking when I saw that Donald Trump was in business with Felix Sater in the Trump Soho project and a number of other controversial condo projects.
And
83/ Simpson implies that Christopher Steele, as the former "lead Russianist for MI6"—a wholly accurate claim, to be clear—knew how to recognize and filter out disinformation coming from Russia basically better than anyone on Earth. Let me repeat that: better than anyone on Earth.
So too were Russian political figures and Russian intelligence (FSB).
And
87/ Here's a key summary, by Simpson, of what human intelligence (HUMINT) is, and how someone who specializes in that type of information—in this case, Christopher Steele—would assess it in compiling a dossier of individual HUMINT-based reports originating from Russia nationals.
So when you evaluate human intelligence, human reporting, field reporting, source reporting, you know, it's sort of like when you're a journalist and you're trying to figure out who's telling the truth, right. You don't really decide who's telling the truth. You decide whether the person is credible, right, whether they know what they're talking about, whether there's other reasons to believe what they're saying, whether anything they've said factually matches up with something in the public record.
PS/ See my main feed for interactions with NBC and BI on the news of a mole in the Trump campaign (or org).
I'll offer a parting gift (as it were): there was a snitch in the Trump org. I was told by a major-media UK editor it's the "American" in this graph by Paul Wood (BBC).
And some points from Rangappa:
Asha RangappaVerified account
@AshaRangappa_
Just to underscore: The Five Eyes (Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, in addition to us) are our CLOSEST intelligence partners. BOTH Australia and a former intelligence officer in the U.K. provided intel to the U.S. that they believed were a nat'l security risk.
At this point, to discredit the FBI's investigation is to not only suggest that the FBI (and CIA and NSA, which agrees with the FBI's intel) is engaged in some kind of anti-Trump conspiracy, but also the countries we entrust the MOST with international intelligence cooperation.
I worked with MI-6 and CSIS (Canada's intelligence service), and I can tell you that the level of trust afforded to these partners and vice versa is fundamental.